Ceat tyres to set up Rs 5,000 crore, 163-acre plant near Chennai

CHENNAI: RPG group's flagship company Ceat will set up a tyre manufacturing unit near Sunkuvarchatram, located 49km from Chennai, on an area of about 163 acres at an investment of nearly Rs 5,000 crore. The project, which is on the drawing board, will give a leg-up to Tamil Nadu which has been scrambling for investments.“A private party aggregated the land and the registration happened a few days ago,“ said a source familiar with the project.The RPG management is now getting the factory plan ready and is likely to sign up with the state government for an incentive package later this month.“With large tracts of land unavailable near Chennai, the group took to private land aggregation,“ said the source. The land is at Kannanthangal village in Kancheepuram district. A Ceat spokesman refused to give details. “As a matter of policy, we do not respond to market speculations,“ he told TOI. The upcoming factory will produce nearly 150 tonnes of tyres a day for cars, trucks and two-wheelers in the first phase, and gradually ramp up production. With this, Ceat will be joining a long list of tyre companies including home grown MRF, Michelin, JK Tyres and Apollo Tyres which have plants in and around Chennai. Automotive tyre making units are located in the vehicle manufacturing hubs to cut logistics cost. Chennai and its automotive ecosystem which includes car makers like Hyundai, Ford, Nissan & Renault; truck and bus makers including Ashok Leyland, Bharat Benz and two-wheeler factories including Royal Enfield and Yamaha will be the target base for Ceat. Real estate consultants G Square helped aggregate the land. “We completed the acquisition in 90 days smoothly. The project will come up 7km from Sunkuvarchatram,“ said Bala, CEO of G Square.The greenfield project, first in the region after Yamaha's Chennai plant in 2015, is expected to give a much-needed boost to TN's image as an investorfriendly state. In the recent years, TN had watched helplessly as investments went to the neighbouring Andhra Pradesh and Telengana.(With inputs from Nandini Sen Gupta)